Villaceran, Rhea Aila R.

BTLED_ICT 2-G2

Synthesis Paper on P.W. Anderson’s More is Different

In 1972, P. According to W. Anderson, 'More is Different,' which means that complex

physical systems may exhibit behavior that cannot be explained solely by the laws that govern their
microscopic constituents. In his article, he argued for a more holistic approach to understanding
and modeling our universe, rather than against reductionism in general. This has piqued the
reader's interest because it raises the question of whether reductionism exists in scientific laws or
how it relates to its fundamentals: how much we can explain by reducing and whether we can keep
reducing until we reach the bottom. Is overt reductionism enough, and is the most fundamental
theory truly the best theory?
The natural sciences describe reality by progressing from the abstract universal to the
particularities of our lived reality: from Physical Sciences, such as Chemistry, Geology, Physics, and
Mathematics, which deal with matter, energy, and their interrelationships and transformations, to
Objectively Measurable Phenomena, which deal with objectively measurable phenomena. Now, the
deeper we delve into a specific topic in the branch of sciences, the more specific things become, and
the more specific things become, the more different approaches to the specific topic tend to
become. As a result, it contradicts the idea that the fundamental theory of the universe should be as
universal as possible, with as little specificity as possible. To paint a simple caricature,
reductionism's ultimate goal is to find a simple, unified, and concise theory, with string theory being
perhaps the most popular (and contentious) contender to date. Anderson goes on to claim that in
the limit of infinite systems, emergent principles take over and govern the behavior of the system,
which can no longer be deduced from the behavior of the constituent parts.
This 'inability to reconstruct the ' from his first principles, I believe, is the exact corollary of
understanding reductionism as context-invariance. I would like to give an example theory to
Anderson’s claims by proving that standard notions of reductionism cannot generally hold in a
widely studied class of collective systems, the infinite square Ising lattice according to the results of
the article ‘More Really is Different’. The Ising models play an important role in modeling many
physical and biological phenomena. It indicates that in such systems, many general macroscopic
ground state properties cannot be computed from fundamental laws governing the microscopic
constituents. Despite the complete characterization of the system, we can assign two different
values to any such property, and there would exist no logical way to prove which assignment is
correct. Instead, in specific instances, the best one can do is assert the value of some physically
interesting properties as axiomatic, perhaps based on experimental evidence or (finite)
simulations; this would truly be an example where ‘more is different (Gu, Weedbrook, Perales and
Nielsen, 2008).
The essence of how science and technology contribute to society is the creation of new
knowledge and then the application of that knowledge to improve human life and solve societal
problems. The application of P.W. Anderson’s ideas in his article clearly reflects in various areas of
our world today. They have resulted in significant gains in living standards, public welfare, health,
and security. They have altered our perceptions of the universe and of ourselves in relation to the
world around us. For example, in the aspect of technology, it actually involves breaking the system
into its parts and studying the parts' behavior in isolation under controlled conditions. This concept
also applies in in the different areas in our world today. Thus, people get the chance to have a more
diverse results, which make our lives in the modern day fast-paced and progressive.
The main takeaway message is that we must be aware of the theoretical limitations. As a
result, as Anderson points out, chemistry is more than just applied physics, and biology is more
than just applied chemistry, and we will always have to consider reality from multiple perspectives.
Looking at the elegance and simplicity at the bottom of it, and then raising our eyes to look at the
world with all its whirling maddening richness of diversity, enriches the scientific enterprise.